Password misuse is often cited as a weak point in the security of computing platforms. The security industry is therefore considering other mechanisms for securing computing platforms, such as biometric authentication and security tokens. Although useful, existing biometric authentication protocols rely on biometric templates that include biometric information that may uniquely identify a user. Effective revocation of a reference template may be difficult, as it may require an individual to somehow alter his/her physical appearance. Security of biometric reference templates and the biometric information contained therein is therefore desirable.
Some biometric protocols rely on the use of biometric templates that are retained on one or more client devices that remain under control of a user. Although such protocols can improve the security of biometric templates, they may present challenges to user experience. For example, a user may control multiple client devices that are not equipped with the same biometric sensors. In such instances a user may need to individually use each client device to collect biometric information for inclusion in a biometric reference template stored thereon. This may hamper the user's experience with the protocol, and may result in the provisioning of inconsistent biometric templates among the user's various client devices. Even if the user controls multiple identical client devices, existing biometric protocols do not provide a convenient mechanism to securely restore biometric templates to a client device, and/or to synchronize biometric templates across multiple identical or different client devices.
Accordingly there remains a need in the art for biometric authentication technologies that maintain security of biometric templates while providing a convenient mechanism for restoring and/or synchronizing such templates. The technologies described herein aim to address one or more aspects of that need.
Although the following detailed description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.